The marketing campaign for "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" confuses me. One set of TV spots highlights the artists on the soundtrack (Demi Lovato, AFI, etc), telling us nothing about the plot of the film. The other set of ads show mostly the cast at press events, surrounded by a sea of screaming teenage female fans (again, nothing about the film). It seems as though they're publicly admitting that the primary draw is a youthful and attractive cast, with the secondary draw being the allegedly great music playing the background. Plot? Acting? Social significance? We don't need these things, or even the illusion thereof.

There was a similarly odd set of commercials for "Oblivion" with Tom Cruise. The only advertised redeeming qualities of the film were the visual effects. They had quotes from various movie critics talking about how spectacular the movie LOOKED, but nary a word about whether it offered anything besides an insane actor and a sizable CGI budget.

Is this the new normal? Have we happily consumed so much worthless media that the studios don't even have the common decency to lie to us and pretend that a movie has some merit? Have their focus groups determined that simply showing teenage girls screaming is enough to make other teenage girls hand over their parents' disposable income? Is it okay for a movie to have no discernible story and admit it, so long as there are cool explosions in 3D?

Allow me to demonstrate how most product managers are dumbfucks. As you know, Skype is owned by Microsoft. When you select text in Skype and right click on it, do you see a menu option to search Bing? Do you see an option to search the web at all? Of course not. #ProductManagement#Skype﻿

I'd fire engineers who write unit tests and ignore them months later when they fail. They're already acting as if they no longer work on the project. Purge dead weight for the benefit of all. #SoftwareDevelopment﻿

Dr Vegunta was my daughter's pediatric surgeon after her soft-tissue sarcoma diagnosis. He excised the tumor successfully and saved my daughter's life during his tenure at the Children's Hospital of Illinois. While I certainly have no qualifications that would allow me to speak on his skill as a surgeon, I do have a healthy daughter who has been cancer free for three years as of this writing. Additionally I can attest to Dr Vegunta's excellent bedside manner and extraordinarily kind demeanor. He's great with children and helped my daughter remain calm before her surgeries. He carefully and clearly explained the procedure and the results to me, and was extremely willing to entertain my panicked questions. I cannot possibly recommend Dr Vegunta highly enough.

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Dr Vegunta was my daughter's pediatric surgeon after her soft-tissue sarcoma diagnosis. He excised the tumor successfully and saved my daughter's life during his tenure at the Children's Hospital of Illinois. While I certainly have no qualifications that would allow me to speak on his skill as a surgeon, I do have a healthy daughter who has been cancer free for three years as of this writing. Additionally I can attest to Dr Vegunta's excellent bedside manner and extraordinarily kind demeanor. He's great with children and helped my daughter remain calm before her surgeries. He carefully and clearly explained the procedure and the results to me, and was extremely willing to entertain my panicked questions. I cannot possibly recommend Dr Vegunta highly enough.

Let's be honest. Gas prices, in general, are going to be pretty much the same everywhere you go in an area. The only things that set a gas station apart are their non-fuel offerings and their staff. You might save a penny a gallon by going to one gas station over another, but if that's your entire goal, you're not reading this review... You're probably busy warming up your ramen noodles.
The FS in Minier is exactly what you'd expect from a small town gas station and convenience store. The building needs some repair, it's a little cramped, and it's chock full of enough sugary treats to give all 1,200 citizens of Minier diabetes. What sets the store apart is the staff, especially the weekday morning crew.
Minier is an old German farming town populated with a notable number of (unsurprisingly) old German farmers. On any given morning, you're likely to see a steady stream of geriatric agriculturalists pouring in and out of the FS for their morning coffee and a few friendly words with the fine folks that work there. I've had that coffee, and I can say with some certainty that it's not why people go back every morning. They go to have their morning made just a little bit brighter by the excellent crew behind the counter.

• • •

Let's be honest. Gas prices, in general, are going to be pretty much the same everywhere you go in an area. The only things that set a gas station apart are their non-fuel offerings and their staff. You might save a penny a gallon by going to one gas station over another, but if that's your entire goal, you're not reading this review... You're probably busy warming up your ramen noodles.
The FS in Minier is exactly what you'd expect from a small town gas station and convenience store. The building needs some repair, it's a little cramped, and it's chock full of enough sugary treats to give all 1,200 citizens of Minier diabetes. What sets the store apart is the staff, especially the weekday morning crew.
Minier is an old German farming town populated with a notable number of (unsurprisingly) old German farmers. On any given morning, you're likely to see a steady stream of geriatric agriculturalists pouring in and out of the FS for their morning coffee and a few friendly words with the fine folks that work there. I've had that coffee, and I can say with some certainty that it's not why people go back every morning. They go to have their morning made just a little bit brighter by the excellent crew behind the counter.